200mg seems to be safe high-end starting point to a non-opiate naive individual, as a starting dose from long periods of being off of any substances (e.g. someone who has been addicted to other opioids for extended periods), I got out of Walla Walla penitentiary late last year and began my regimen at around 100 pills (200mg), stay away from the gel-tabs, they seem to upset ones stomach at large doses. Also the simethicone as a second active ingredient in brand name Imodium doesn't seem to be a problem in high doses either; I cannot say for extended periods, but I've had to resort to taking more than seventy Imodium name pills as a one time replacement to my generic "loperamide only" pills I prefer, and have had no ill effect. But this was a one-off substitution in an extenuating situation; I wouldn't recommend sustaining on this, who knows what the effects in the long term of simethicone over-use may entail if done consistently. Be aware of the contents. I think the amount of anhydrous lactose and other pill binding inert constituents of the pills may have led to cases of extreme digestive irritability; I had to dial 911 for an ambulance from my front porch when I had such a case of extreme acid reflux it lasted for four hours and I thought it would be a heart-attack. They gave me an internal cock-tail of lidocaine to swallow and prescribed me carafate to take as needed. It helped with the spells, but they were unbearable on the pain scale, certainly not a normal effect and I have never had a history of such problems before my inordinate and copious OTC pill intake.
Four 72ct bottles are the most I've taken at once and been fine, the day after, I took four 96ct bottles at once and OD'd, so there was some lingering from the day before, which is why I say my OD was between 800mg-&-1,250mg. I was hit with naloxone fives times, they wanted to give me a sixth shot before moving me out of ICU but I refused it: if I hadn't been awake before I went out and collapsed, I wouldn't have been able to inform them that it was an opioid overdose and may not have made it. Luckily I was out doing chores in public at the Dept. of Social Health Services (DSHS) building getting some things done or I may have fell out at home and been done for. Note: they say loperamide withdrawal is worse than methadone withdrawal, and since being dependent, I haven't gone more than two days without because it is easily accessible; I will say though, at day two, it felt just like the peak of that first narcan shot; but sustained, not lasting only ten minutes; my skin felt like it was on fire and spontaneous dunked under ice water at once; I was vomiting uncontrollably, which I never did in my seven years of heroin dependance (I puked near the end of a kick, three days after the worst of it, usually); so it is definitely much worse than heroin; I've also heard it said that WD from lope *peaks* four to seven days into it; so I wasn't even half-way to the worst of it. WD from lope may even be fatal like benzo WD; I certainly think I wouldn't *want* to survive it if it came down to that. It's a nightmare; also; the state funded local methadone clinic goes by FDA regulations, and though it was a schedule I substance in 1977; it isn't recognized as such now and I cannot get on MD maintenance to get me off of it. The county jails don't even care and won't even put me in the detox tank if I get hemmed up; I also test as a false positive for benzos and my probation officer, who knows of my habit, said; after denying it at first, that the false positive may be do to strange interactive metabolites of long term lope use. If it does something lke metabolize in vivo to a benzo like substance; that could explain the way worse feel of coming off of a long habit and the blurry vision; benzos give me blurry vision too. So in short; don't catch a big habit of this stuff, neurochemical pharmacology has been a hobby of mine for seven years, and it took that erudition for me to find an addiction *worse* than heroin; and it is the down side for my self study; the internet has things you can find that the general public is completely in the dark about; and it is right under our noses. Sometimes when a door is locked; God gives you a brick to break the window with to get in; but expect to get cut badly on the way through.
and withdrawal that feels like a naloxone shot 
